If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Welcome to the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association Forum, we hope you like what you find here and we strongly encourage you to register for an account with us, especially if you are from Pennsylvania. Once registered you will have access to participate in our community. Thanks for visiting and we hope you become a regular!

Is My New Shotgun Defective?

I just bought a brand new TriStar Hunter EX 12 gauge O/U from Cabela's on Saturday. I then took it trap shooting Sunday and shot about 150 shells through it. Today I took it apart to clean it, and while cleaning I noticed light shining through the bottom of the receiver. I cleaned it before I shot it, and I don't remember seeing any anything odd in that area. Upon further inspection it looks like the bottom of the receiver has chipped away in some spots (as you can see in the photos below). Since I am using my cell phone as a camera the only way to show what I'm talking about in a picture was to shine a flashlight through (But these holes are clearly visible to the naked eye when looking closely).

My question is, should I take this shotgun back to Cabela's as a defective product? I'm no expert on shotguns, but I don't think those holes are supposed to be there.

Re: Is My New Shotgun Defective?

Appears to be a case of poor fitting with gaps at the joint. I doubt it's dangerous, but even a cheap shotgun should be better-fitted. I would suggest at least comparing your gun to others of the same model before deciding what you want to do.

Re: Is My New Shotgun Defective?

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm definitely going to take this back to Cabela's first thing Saturday morning. I also think I am going to try to get store credit and shell out some more money for a better known brand of shotgun if possible (Their return policy says they will exchange defective firearms, but doesn't say if it has to be for the same exact product). If this thing made it through TriStar's quality control I feel like a shotgun with any number of problems could as well and would rather not take my chances.

Re: Is My New Shotgun Defective?

Just to give an update, I went to Cabela's today and to my surprise they were more than willing to allow me to exchange my defective TriStar for a different gun. Wanting to stay with a reputable brand I ended up getting a Winchester SX3. I haven't had a chance to shoot it yet but I'm going trap shooting first thing tomorrow morning and I can't wait.

Re: Is My New Shotgun Defective?

Well at least they took it back, they are better than a certain distributor I used to deal with.

We got in one of the exact same gun for a raffle and it had the same problem. It had 7 or 8 holes in it. The holes appeared to be from where they laser engraved the receiver and they went too deep.
Anyway, we got stuck with ours since the distributor refused to take it back.

Anyway, you ended up with a much better quality firearm in the Winchester, hope you like it, they're nice.